Prescription Drug AbuseThe Untold Aftermath “A groom anxious over his upcoming wedding

Prescription Drug Abuse:The Untold Aftermath “A groom, anxious over his upcoming wedding, overdosed on a cocktail of prescription drugs. A teenage honors student overdosed on painkillers that her father had left in his medicine cabinet from a surgery years earlier. A toddler orphaned after both parents overdosed on prescription drugs a few months apart. A grandmother suffering from chronic back pain apparently forgot she’d already taken her daily regimen of pills and ended up double dosing and dying.”(Estren) As we cope with pain, we will try anything/everything to help substitute it. From consuming alcohol, to even extremes as using drugs. As we use these methods, no one ever really explains or brings up its aftermath. Especially when it comes to prescription drugs, since they are given by a “trusted” medical Physician. So it clearly shouldn’t be a problem, right? Well, sadly wrong, over prescribing prescription medication is a huge epidemic crisis happening in America today. WebMD states. “There’s plenty of blame to go around, from companies that used questionable marketing to make opioids the go-to for pain treatment, to the doctors who failed to change their habits even as patients’ bodies piled up, to the insurance companies that may not cover alternatives to opioids.” To begin, what are opioids? Opioids are are a class of drugs naturally found in the opium poppy plant. Prescription opioids and heroin are chemically similar and can produce a similar high. In some places, heroin is cheaper and easier to get than prescription opioids, so some people switch to using heroin instead. Nearly 80 percent of Americans using heroin (including those in treatment) reported misusing prescription opioids prior to using heroin.(NIDA) With that being said,many believe since the medication is prescribed they are pron to overdosing and any other drastic side effects. Although there is many positive side effects of these medications when taken properly, it’s still best to know what occurs when they are used inappropriately. Opiates that are commonly misused are Vicodin, Morphine, Codeine, Fentanyl, and Hydrocodone. Prescription drugs are becoming an epidemic in America because the rates of overdose deaths have skyrocket. According to Ganeva, “Since 1999, more than 200,000 Americans have died from prescription opioid overdoses, leading many in the media to compare the crisis to the height of the AIDS epidemic.”(www.cdc.gov/nchs/data)As I analyzed this figure, hearing and actually seeing this increase is very heartbreaking. You begin to wonder how America has even let it get this far? Yet, in 2017, however, there were still almost 58 opioid prescriptions written for every 100 Americans. (CDC Prevention Reports) These pills are highly addictive and patients have gone to extremes such as snorting, injecting, and consuming more than stated on bottle. A huge crisis recently happened to more than fifty health workers across six states, where they were all charged for exchanging Opiods for sex. As US NEWS stated, “The people charged across 11 federal districts, include 31 doctors, seven pharmacists, eight nurse practitioners, and seven other licensed medical professionals, the Justice Department said. The cases involve more than 350,000 prescriptions for controlled substances across Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and West Virginia. The arrests were the latest effort to combat the nationwide opioid epidemic.” Now who knows how many lives have been affected by those 350,000 fraudulent prescriptions. These opioids are causing so much harm and they were literally passed out like candy. Families, communities, and individuals lives will drastically change for the use of these opioids. How does the abuse or misuse even begin? Prescription medications are prescribed to help cope with pain and trauma. To begin internal pain can not be seen, so we can never really determine if the patient being prescribed is totally honest, especially when it comes to back pain. That’s why when many enter a Doctors office they already know which medications they are after and wont leave without it. Or the ones being prescribed enjoy making a profit off the medication and instead of tossing the medication not being used they will sell it. “If they discover they can make $20 a pill on the street